Combat· Banana Wars
Nicaragua Operations
The long, intermittent record of Marine intervention in Nicaragua across thirty-five years.
It runs from the early landings of the 1900s through the Bluefields operations of 1909–10, Major Butler's first major intervention; the 1912 campaign under Colonel Pendleton that culminated in the storming of Coyotepe; the long years of the small legation guard at Managua that followed; and finally the great Sandino campaign of 1927–33, the hardest of all, fought against an elusive guerrilla in the wild northern provinces. That last war gave the Corps the dive-bombing debut at Ocotal, Schilt's Medal of Honor for his flights into besieged Quilalí, Puller's rise to fame, and Edson's pioneering Coco River patrols. Throughout, the Marines built and led the Guardia Nacional, the constabulary meant to keep order after they left, an institution whose commander would later seize the country. Nicaragua was the most sustained of the Banana Wars interventions.
Engagements in this conflict (8) Podcast episodes on Banana Wars
Record no. 494